With the rise of cloud services and services utilizing big data, there has been an increase of services which collect information from various kinds of equipment into a server and provide users with useful information. For example, a mechanism called IoT (Internet of Things) has come into use, where not only information and communication equipment such as computers but also a variety of things are provided with a communication function and, by making them connect to the internet and communicate with each other, automatic recognition, automatic control, telemetry, etc. are performed.
In the IoT, from such equipment having like the above described communication function (hereafter referred to also as “IoT equipment”), for example, position information obtained by the GPS (Global Positioning System), temperature information by a thermometer, an acceleration and a speed by an acceleration sensor, electric power consumption by a smart meter and the like are collected by a server. In the IoT, by collecting and analyzing an enormous amount of such data, useful information is provided for users.
In an embedded apparatus into which a specific function is incorporated in advance, such as the IoT equipment, the function is usually implemented by using not only the hardware but also firmware for controlling operation of the apparatus. There, it is often the case that the firmware is provided with an important logic for the embedded apparatus's fulfilling its function.
In recent years, as a result of that embedded apparatuses such as IoT equipment have become widely used in a variety of situations, there has been pointed out a problem of technology leaks by copying and analyzing firmware operating in the embedded apparatuses.
As a related technology, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2011-197791 (JP 2011-197791) discloses a program for management server which, at a time of firmware downloading by an information processing apparatus, can specify a server to be accessed by the information processing apparatus according to a region where the information processing apparatus is located.
Further, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2011-175622 (JP 2011-175622) discloses a technology which enables a service provider technician to diagnose, repair and optimize a malfunctioning computing device, via firmware residing on the malfunctioning computing device.